Schweiker's job will include scouting possible plant sites in Pennsylvania and other states, as well as lobbying governments for help. He said that Gov. Corbett, a Republican like Schweiker, had invited the firm north and that the company and state had been negotiating "a combination of tax credits and grant funding, mostly tax credits," to sweeten the move.
Schweiker said he and Hamilton were recruited to Renmatix by partners of the Silicon Valley investment firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers. Renmatix investors, including Kleiner partner John Doerr, have committed $50 million to the company, $30 million from the German chemical giant BASF. Wilmington-based DuPont Co. spent $6 billion last year for Denmark-based Danisco, which is developing a rival, enzymes-based biofuels process.
Schweiker's previous employer, PRWT, is, with
its affiliates, a nearly $100 million-a-year (in sales) business that manages the Philadelphia Parking Authority impoundment lot, New Jersey E-ZPass, and other government services.
PRWT was also, on Schweiker's watch, the operator of a former Merck & Co. Inc. antibiotics factory in Riverside, Pa. That complex included a biological-materials production facility that was picked by California-based Solazyme as the site for a federally subsidized biofuels project in 2009. Solazyme and Department of Energy officials didn't return calls on the status of that project. Schweiker wouldn't comment on whether that plant was a possible Renmatix site.
Shutdown
In the first Pennsylvania insurance-company failure since 2004, the state Insurance Department has won Commonwealth Court approval to take over
